1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a chip for inspecting toxicity and efficacy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, for new materials used as the raw materials for new drugs and cosmetics, first, screening work is performed to determine whether or not the new materials have efficacy thereby allowing candidate materials to be selected from among the new materials, following which animal and clinical testing is conducted to analyze the action mechanism and toxicity of the candidate materials in detail.
However, since most candidate materials have toxicity, the above method is disfavored because the candidate materials are poisonous to the human body, causing inefficiency in terms of the period and cost required to develop new drugs or new materials.
Currently, the toxicity of new drugs or new materials is inspected in the early stages of development as part of the effort into preventing the inefficient development of new drugs or new materials.
Generally, the toxicity of candidate materials to cells is inspected by cultivating cells in a well plate and then administering candidate materials into the cultivated cells, the candidate materials having been metabolized by enzymes in the liver.
Meanwhile, the well plate needs a comparatively large amount of reagents and cells. Here, in the case of new materials, there is a problem in that the production cost of new materials is increased due to small quantity multi-product production, and, in the case of cells, there is a problem in that it is difficult to keep the balance of supply and demand.
Therefore, in order to solve the above problems and to maximize the efficiency of screening new materials, currently, technologies for inspecting the toxicity of the new materials by fixing and culturing a very small amount of cells on a solid substrate and then administering a very small amount of drugs into the fixed and cultured cells are being developed.
FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing a conventional chip 100 for inspecting toxicity.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional chip 100 for inspecting toxicity includes two glass substrates 110 and 120.
Here, metabolites 112 obtained from the reaction of new materials and enzymes in the liver are disposed on one glass substrate 110, and cells 114 immovably cultured in gel-state droplets are disposed in an array shape on the other glass substrate 120.
This chip 100 for inspecting toxicity includes a gasket 130 for preventing cells from being damaged at the time of attaching the two glass substrates 110 and 120 and for maintaining the gap between the two glass substrates 110 and 120.
In the chip 100 for inspecting toxicity, the lateral and upper sides of the glass substrate 120 are precisely machined so that the glass substrates 110 and 120 can be mechanically aligned at the time of attaching the glass substrates 110 and 120. Also, the gasket 130 is fabricated by patterning a polymer material at the edge of the glass substrate 120 using an ejector and then hardening the patterned polymer material in order to prevent cells from being damaged when the glass substrates 110 and 120 are attached.
In this chip 100 for inspecting toxicity, the attachment of the upper substrate 110 and the lower substrate 120 causes the gap between the upper and lower substrates 110 and 120 to decrease, so that liquid droplets located therebetween overlap each other, with the result that drugs are transferred from the upper glass substrate 110 to the lower glass substrate 120 by the diffusion of the liquid droplets.
In the chip 100 for inspecting toxicity configured such that drugs are transferred from the upper glass substrate 110 to the lower glass substrate 120, the chip 100 is cultured in an environmental chamber for a predetermined period of time, and then the upper glass substrate 110 is removed and the activity of the cells is inspected with a dye or phosphor, thereby finally evaluating the toxicity of candidate materials.
However, the conventional chip 100 for inspecting toxicity is problematic in that the lateral and upper sides of the glass substrate 120, which are used as reference planes at the time of attaching the glass substrates 110 and 120, must be precisely machined in order for the glass substrates 110 and 120 to be mechanically aligned, thus causing inefficiency in terms of the cost of the materials and that of production due to the precise machining of the glass substrate 120.
Further, the conventional chip 100 for inspecting toxicity is problematic because the gasket 130 is disposed between the two glass substrates 110 and 120 in order to prevent the cells from being damaged when the glass substrates 110 and 120 are attached so as to maintain the gap between the two glass substrates 110 and 120, and this gasket 130 is fabricated by patterning a polymer material at the edge of the glass substrate 120 using an ejector and then hardening the patterned polymer material, thus causing deviations in the thickness of the gasket 130.
In this regard, the deviations in thickness of the gasket 130 cause the increase of defective fractions at the time of attaching the glass substrates 110 and 120.